tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-90604160024229047432017-09-25T08:52:27.414-04:00Fr. Wayne's BlogDaily Reflections the mass of the day.Fr. Wayne Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13785891141335785078noreply@blogger.comBlogger1354125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9060416002422904743.post-77270834774327067242017-09-25T08:51:00.001-04:002017-09-25T08:52:27.418-04:00The gift of deafnessTucked into today’s gospel is a command that can easily be overlooked. While we are focused on not hiding the light, the well known part of today’s gospel we can miss the simple command<div><br></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Be careful how you hear.</b></div><div><b><br></b></div><div>Like many people I took normal hearing for gratntd. Even though I had worked with deaf people over the years, I now see that I had no real appreciation for the challenges. &nbsp;For example, in my ignorance I thought that deafness meant living in silence. The constant roar of tenitis in my deaf ear means my world is never quiet. And I can also look back now and see how I did not use the gift wisely.&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>The simple truth is that we human beings cannot focus on more than one thing at a time. This often makes it hard for us to listen, to truly hear what another person is saying. We listen up to a point, and then an idea pops into our heads, perhaps a response or a reaction to what the person is saying. The minute we turn our attention to that idea, we are no longer listening. We may have enough self control not to interrupt, but that does not mean we are listening.&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>It has been less than four months but I can already begin to see how joining in world of the Single-Sided Deaf (as it is called) has been a gift. It has forced me to pay attention. Even with the hearing-aids I have to focus if I am going to hear what someone else is saying. If my attention wanders, I lose the words. But this is not a bad thing at all. It forces me to listen, then process, then respond. &nbsp;As I see it, it cannot but make me a better person, and certainly a better priest.&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>Even partial hearing is a tremendous gift that we should never take for granted. Like all gifts from God, it uses be used with the greatest care. Today’s gospel offers each of us the opportunity to pay attention throughout this day to how well we use this gift. In order to hear, we much choose to listen.&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div><br></div>Fr. Wayne Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13785891141335785078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9060416002422904743.post-54573777176079093322017-09-11T09:24:00.001-04:002017-09-11T09:30:03.750-04:00Day 25When most &nbsp;Catholics think of the church, they think of either the Vatican or their parish. This weekend we will mark one month with a Vacant See. This time without a bishop can be a time when we reflect on our understanding of what might be called the intermediate church.&nbsp;<div><br></div><div>Interestingly when our theology uses the term local church or particular church, it is not referring to the parish but the diocese or an equivalent structure. A pariah is a "community" or a "part" but it is never called "church." In our creed we proclaim a Church that is "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic." It is the bishop who in a unique way preserves the unity and apostolic nature of the Church. Without a bishop seven sacraments are not possible. Yes, if a diocese is without a bishop you can bring one in to ordain, but this is never to be seen as normal or normative. The norm remains that a bishop of a diocese should ordain priests and deacons who assist him in ministering to the people of the diocese.&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>In this time known as a vacant see that the Church calls priests to offer the mass "For the election of a pope or bishop." The word election can be confusing particularly because we do not in the modern sense elect or bishop. We use the word "election" because in Latin it refers not to ballots and votes but to choosing and being chosen. We use the word election in the same way in the RCIA. We pray for the 'election" and we will call him "bishop-elect" until he is installed, &nbsp;becuause he has been chosen, by the Pope and by the Holy Sprirt who we believe still guides the Church.&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>It is easy for any of us to slip into a very narrow vision of church, to see the diocese as merely bureaucracy. Perhaps in these days when we are without a bishop, it is not only a time for us to pray for the one who will be chosen, but also for us to deepen our understanding of what it means to be part of a diocese and what it means to have a bishop. Perphaps now would be a good time for all of us to read at least the first few paragraphs of&nbsp;<a href="http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decree_19651028_christus-dominus_en.html" id="id_dba7_5f32_8dd2_d8f4">Christus Dominus</a>&nbsp;the Vatican II document on the role of a bishop. Jesus &nbsp;not only calls us to be individually disciples but we are called to be one Church.&nbsp;</div>Fr. Wayne Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13785891141335785078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9060416002422904743.post-43650969252044349382017-08-29T06:56:00.001-04:002017-08-29T06:56:22.239-04:00What real power looks likeToday we celebrate the beheading of John the Baptist. It sounds strange to use the word celebrate, but it is the right word because we know that he was the truly victorious one in the story.&nbsp;<div><br></div><div>If we look closely we will see the irony of this gospel. The king is the powerless one. He could have been powerful. He had the potential as king but he allowed himself to be manipulated by fear. His fear of looking weak was precisely what made him weak. The gospel tells us,</div><div><br></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>The king was deeply distressed, but because of his oaths and the guests he did not wish to break his word to her.</b></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b><br></b></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">His step-daughter, his brother's wife, the guests, all in different ways held power over the king. And because of his weakness John the Baptist died. Herod looked powerful because he could&nbsp;</span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">order an execution but it was merely a kind of&nbsp;faux power.&nbsp;</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">When I was a seminarian, a retired navy captain gave me several pieces of advice about leadership. One was, "The day you have to tell people you're in charge, you're no longer in charge. You've already lost control of the situation."</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Real power doesn't have to look powerful; it just is.&nbsp;</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">We can sometimes forget that we have the example of absolute power to follow. &nbsp;Jesus Christ was the most powerful person in the history of the world. After all, he is God. His power, his strength, his authority are unmatched. And yet, how did he demonstrate those qualities to the world.</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">As Christians, on this feast of the Beheading of John the. Baptist, perhaps it is time for each of us to step back and ask if we are truly ready to put our faith into action. Are we ready to challenge all of our leaders, all those who exercise authority over others, to do so according to the model of Christ? One does not have to be Christian to learn from his example. &nbsp;</span></div>Fr. Wayne Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13785891141335785078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9060416002422904743.post-34145894310856163832017-08-28T08:14:00.001-04:002017-08-28T08:14:11.239-04:00Universal Call to HolinessToday the Church celebrates St. Augustine, undoubtedly one of the great theologians of Christianity.&nbsp;<div><br></div><div>Turn on your television and you will see program after program that deals with the supernatural. Go to church, and in far too many places the supernatural aspect of Christiany is gone. Jesus is reduced to a moral philosopher. Let me be clear. By supernatural I am not talking about ghosts and haunting. By supernatural, I am referring to things like the real power of grace.&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>When we speak and sing of the grace of God we are not simply speaking about &nbsp;God's forgiveness. Grace is something real. Grace is powerful. And we receive it in the sacraments.&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>In our profession of faith we proclaim our belief that the Church is holy, and it is precisely the grace of God that transforms and makes the Church holy. It why St. Paul is able to refer to the memebers of the Church as "saints," holy ones.&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>Some talk as if we are still slaves to sin, and the best we can do is hope that when we die God will be merciful. That is not our faith. As the Catechism says, "By canonizing some of the faithful, i.e., by solemnly proclaiming that they practiced heroic virtue and lived in fidelity to God’s grace the Church recognizes the power of the Spirit of holiness within her and sustains the hope of believers by proposing the saints to them as models and intercessors."</div><div><br></div><div>The Second Vatican Council reminded us of the universal call to holiness. &nbsp;The saints we venerate in the Church, the statues and icons of them, are constant reminders to us that heroic virtue is possible, living in fidelity to God's covenant is possible. No matter how strong the pull of sin is in our lives, we believe that the power of grace is stronger. We never give up the struggle.&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>We venerate Saints like Augustine to remind us of the words of the Letter to the Hebrews&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div><b>We are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.&nbsp;</b></div><div><b><br></b></div><div>It is not old-fashioned, outdated, or superstitious for us to reach out to the great cloud of witnesses for help. On this feast of St. Augustine let each of us renew our belief that we are called to be holy, and let us renew our belief in the power of grace in our lives.&nbsp;</div>Fr. Wayne Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13785891141335785078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9060416002422904743.post-54263082400283190612017-08-21T09:07:00.001-04:002017-08-21T09:07:17.040-04:00The Empty ChairIn today's first reading we hear about the role of the judges in Israel. In our American culture the symbol of the judge is the bench.<br /><br />For us in the Catholic Church, the parallel symbol for a bishop is his chair. We often use the Greek word Cathedra, or the Latin word Sedes. We call the building that houses the chair a Cathedral. And, somewhat confusingly, Sedes makes its way into English as See. So we have terms like the Holy See, to refer to the Chair of Peter occupied at present by Pope Francis.<br /><br />The chair for us is not primarily a symbol of judging but of teaching. If you watch the Pope, you will notice that he sits to preach/teach.<br /><br />When a bishop dies, we call it a Vacant See, meaning the chair sits empty.&nbsp; Indeed,&nbsp; in some Ancient Eastern Christian Churches the chair is interred with the Bishop.&nbsp; In the Catholic Church, the chair in the Cathedral will officially sit empty until the 13th Bishop of Richmond is installed. During the installation mass, the Archbishop of the Province (in our case the Archbishop of Baltimore) and the Nuncio (as representative of the Pope) will escort the new Bishop to the chair. At that time the See will no longer be vacant. <br /><br />Our Catholic language and symbols can seem strange even to those who have grown up Catholic. The strange language reminds us that we are talking about the spiritual not the worldly. And as physical beings we need symbols, tangible points of reference.<br /><br />Between now and the installation of our new bishop, perhaps it would be good for those who can to make a visit to the <a href="http://richmondcathedral.org/" target="_blank">Cathedral of the Sacred Heart</a>. As we look upon the empty chair, we pray for the last occupant of the chair, the Most Rev. Francis X. DiLorenzo, that he may be welcomed into the company of the saints; and we pray for the next occupant of the chair, to&nbsp; be chosen with the help of the Holy Spirit to lead the faithful of the Diocese of Richmond.&nbsp; Fr. Wayne Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13785891141335785078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9060416002422904743.post-87217529682750108322017-08-12T08:56:00.000-04:002017-08-12T08:56:15.325-04:00Faith as gift<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I have to apologize to those who were regular readers for having simply dropped out of sight for over a month. God and I have been wrestling a bit.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; min-height: 13.8px;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">On June 5th at 9 pm I lost my hearing in my right ear, totally. On the morning of the 6th I woke up with wicked vertigo. Long story short- I have learned a whole new vocabulary with phrases like: Sudden Sensory-Neuro Hearing Loss, Single-Sided Deafness, Vestibular Rehab, and Cros Hearing Aids. While I am told the balance will come back, the hearing will not.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; min-height: 13.8px;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Today's gospel seemed the perfect place to start back.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; min-height: 13.8px;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">We tend to think of the apostles as men of incredible faith, and yet that is not what the gospel tells us. In chapter 17 we find them with minuscule faith.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; min-height: 13.8px;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><b>Why could we not drive it out?” He said to them, “Because of your little faith. Amen, I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”</b></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; min-height: 13.8px;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">When Jesus says, "If you have faith the size of a mustard seed...," the implication is that they don't. They are living with God incarnate and yet their faith is not even as big as a mustard seed.&nbsp; But Jesus does not go looking for better apostles.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; min-height: 13.8px;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Jesus knows what the apostles had to, and we have to, learn. Faith is not something we do. Faith is itself a gift from God. We can search all day long for rational explanations to bolster our faith, but ultimate, we must surrender, and ask, perhaps even beg, for the gift of faith to be poured into our hearts, our minds, our very souls. And we trust that if we ask God will do it.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; min-height: 13.8px;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"></span><br /></div><br /><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">If the very men that Jesus lived with day in and day out were at the start men of little faith, we should not be disheartened when our faith falters. God always stands ready to give us every bit of the faith we need. All we have to do is ask.</span></div>Fr. Wayne Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13785891141335785078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9060416002422904743.post-91566859603564059552017-07-10T07:56:00.001-04:002017-07-10T07:57:33.989-04:00Unconditional Faith We will all talk about unconditional love, because it is something we all want to experience. But what about faith?<br /><br />In the two readings today we get two approaches to faith: Jacob and the official whose daughter has died. <br /><br />Jacob is the example of how we often approach faith.<br /><br /><b>If God remains with me, to protect me on this journey I am making and to give me enough bread to eat and clothing to wear, and I come back safe to my father’s house, the LORD shall be my God.</b><br /><br />We make promises about what we will do at some point in the future, if God first does what we want. It is the classical conditional sentence: if this, then that. Jacob wants to play Let's Make a Deal..<br /><br />Contrast that with the official in the gospel.<br /><br /><b>My daughter has just died. But come, lay your hand on her, and she will live.</b><br /><br />The official does not promise to believe in Jesus if he heals his daughter. He expresses with certainty his belief that when Jesus lays his hand on her she will live. <br /><br />The woman with the hemorrhage has the same certain. She say "if" but she is not making deal she is stating a fact. She says it in the same way I might say, "If I am up at 5 A.M. I will see the sunrise."<br /><br />On a daily basis we must choose which kind of faith we are going to have the conditional faith of Jacob or the unconditional faith in the gospel. The psalm response for the day tells which one we should choose,<br /><br /><b>In you, my God, I place my trust.</b><br /><br />This is the one we should chose. It's up to us each day which one we will chose..<br /><br />Fr. Wayne Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13785891141335785078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9060416002422904743.post-10418041270578707802017-07-08T09:43:00.001-04:002017-07-08T09:43:06.351-04:00God's JusticeToday's first reading is one of the more problematic in the Bible. Jacob lies to his dying father, steals his brother's inheritance and ends up with God's blessing. My guess is that something inside everyone of us says that it's not fair. A liar and a thief should be punished, not blessed. <br /><br />The problem is the shortness of our vision. We see the world one action at a time. We may if we are wise be able to develop a slightly larger perspective but we will never have the perspective of God who sees all time and space simultaneously and therefore can see what we cannot. He sees how all of it, everything that ever was, is or will be, fits together into a cohesive whole. <br /><br />This in no way means that the sin is not sin. A lie is a lie and theft is theft. But only God can truly know how justice is best applied. For our part we have to trust God. And trusting God does not mean angrily thinking inside, "God will get them eventually."<br /><br />Imagine for a moment if we took every single moment that we have spent judging the actions of another, and focused that same energy on conforming our own words and actions to God's will. Imagine how much holier each of us would be. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Fr. Wayne Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13785891141335785078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9060416002422904743.post-45919155577666442052017-07-06T07:55:00.001-04:002017-07-06T07:55:11.429-04:00Our problem with authorityIn today's gospel we find one of the passages that points to the two sacraments we associate with healing: anointing of the sick and penance. Like other healing stories, we can read this story of the paralytic from Mt. 9 and we can miss the deeper meaning. It is captured in the reaction of the crowd. <br /><br /><b>When the crowds saw this they were struck with awe and glorified God who had given such authority to men.</b><br /><br />This story is not simply about the power to heal. It is about authority. Further it is not simply about the authority of Jesus but about the sharing of that authority with the Church. The crowd does not marvel at the authority given to a man; they marvel at the authority given to men, plural (anthropois). <br /><br />And here is where we start to react. We don't mind the idea of answering to God or Jesus, but we begin to react negatively to the idea that we are suppose to be obedient to the authority of people, and for some there is a particular distaste of the idea of answering to men. <br /><br />If we look closely at our reaction what we see is fear. We are afraid the a human being with authority will abuse it and we or someone we love will get hurt. It has happened. It has happened in the church. And it continues to happen. Power and authority are seductive things. <br /><br />So why should we trust, because we trust God. We cannot claim to be people of faith, if we do not trust God. And a part of trusting God, is trusting that God knew what He was doing when he created the Church. <br /><br /><b>you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.</b><br /><br />Today's first reading is the sacrifice of Issac, the story of absolute trust in God. Abraham trusted God so completely that he was willing to sacrifice his own son, if it had been God's will. <br /><br />We can trust and not fear because we know that ultimately God protects the Church the way God protected Issac. Even if this or that individual makes a wrong decision or abuses their authority and we are hurt, we know that ultimately God has the power to transform that pain or suffering into a source of grace and strength. We do not need to ever be afraid. <br /><br /><b>When the crowds saw this they were struck with awe and glorified God who had given such authority to men</b><br /><br />May we look upon all of God's creation with the same sense of awe, including the Church. <br />Fr. Wayne Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13785891141335785078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9060416002422904743.post-48756135719341060012017-07-04T09:15:00.001-04:002017-07-04T09:17:45.502-04:00Our truest selfEach year on the Fourth of July I am reminded how blessed I am to live in Virginia where so much of our nations history is within easy driving distance. It is important for each of us to remember the ideals on which our nation was founded.<br /><br />The right likes to scream about the liberal media bias and the left likes to scream about the president. But behind both problems is a deeper issue.<br /><br />As Christians we believe that human beings were and are created in the image of God and are therefore good. We simultaneously believe that everyone of us on this earth today suffers the stain of original sin. <br /><br />St. Paul articulated the struggle best in his Letter to the Romans when he wrote, <br /><br /><b>I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want. </b><br /><br />We strive to do the good, even though we fail on a regular basis, because we know that the good is what we were created to be and what we are called to be. Or at least we used to know this. <br /><br />Sunday in response to one of the president's tweets, a spokesperson applauded him for being "genuine." I found the defense more disturbing than the tweet because it reflected a deeper more recent cultural turn that has largely happened in my lifetime. <br /><br />When I was growing up we were taught that a part of maturation was impulse control and learning how to behave in civilized society. In the 60's impulse control was labeled repression, and good manners was relegated to the land of snobs. To be authentic meant letting your most basic impulses out in public -the stereotype of the hippie. Now this attitude is being embraced by both left and right. <br /><br />As Christians we believe that doing good is as genuinely human as doing evil. In fact we are more human when we chose the good. As Christians we can distinguish between suppression and repression. Suppression is a good thing. It is the result of a choice we make. We have the bad thought and we chose not to give voice to it or to act on it. <br /><br />Acting contrary to our impulses is not hypocrisy, it is how we grow. In the words of C.S. Lewis, "Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him.”<br /><br />Some will call the founding fathers hypocrites because they did not live the values they professed. They were not hypocrites but people knew their flaws but also knew that we are called to be better, called to be more. <br /><br />On this Fourth of July, let us pray that we never settle for who we are today. Let us keep the ideal ever before us. There was since the fall only one who was authentic — the one who was true God and true man, Jesus Christ. If we want to be authentic, we imitate him.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Fr. Wayne Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13785891141335785078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9060416002422904743.post-42148454989287080282017-07-03T07:00:00.001-04:002017-07-03T07:32:12.111-04:00My Lord and my GodToday the Church celebrates the Feast of St. Thomas the Apostle. At the end of the gospel we hear the very simple profession of faith exclaimed by St. Thomas, "My Lord and My God." Five simple words.<br /><br />But how willing are we really to embrace the implications of those five words. For most of us the first two may be the most problematic, My Lord. If he is the Lord then I am the servant. That means from the time I wake up until the time I fall asleep my primary concern is being there to do whatever he want. I may on occasion be about my own business but must be ready, when called, to drop what I'm doing and run to do whatever he wants me to do. His words are not polite suggestions for what I might want to do; they are orders. We may have loved watching Downton Abbey, but which of us would really want to be "in service." Any yet, as Christians we are called to be like those characters who spent their entire lives as servants. <br /><br />The Second half, My God, is not much easier. To say he is my God means that I worship him. I'm not even sure if we know what it means to worship. More and more our so-called worship on Sunday is expected to be fun and entertaining, especially for the children. The idea that we go to church to worship God seems to have vanished. The mountain of material written today on meditation has mostly dropped references to the one that should be the object of our meditation, God. <br /><br /><br /><br />Fr. Wayne Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13785891141335785078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9060416002422904743.post-88260424621561121372017-07-02T11:09:00.001-04:002017-07-02T11:09:30.050-04:00Lord I am not worthyEvery time we are at mass, before we go forward to receive communion, we quote the centurion,<br /><br /><b>Lord I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof...</b><br /><br />But how much do we really believe in our unworthiness. <br /><br />Those of us who are older love to complain about the millennials and their belief that they are all beautiful unique little snowflakes. We forget that they did not invent the notion, they got it from the generations before them. <br /><br />In the Catholic Church we have our own snowflakes. You can spot them by their mantra, "How dare some priest tell me I shouldn't go to communion?" The concept of unworthiness, or unworthy reception of a sacrament is unimaginable. The sad thing is that much of h time they are completely unaware of the hubris that their attitude represents. <br /><br />In today's gospel Jesus raises the bar to, what seems to be, an impossible level. <br /><br /><b>Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me,<br />and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;<br />and whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me <br />is not worthy of me.</b><br /><br />We need to keep in mind that Greek has a variety of words for love. The verb used in Matthew's gospel for love is <i>phileo</i>. Jesus is making it clear that if we hope to be worthy to enter the kingdom of heaven we must strive for a higher form of love, a love not bound to human relationships, <i>agape</i>. <br /><br />The problem is that we cannot achieve this love on our own. It is only with the assistance of God's grace that we can even hope to move from phileo to agapeo. And Jesus in the statement above provides at least one clear indicator of the presence of agape, the willingness to take up the cross and carry it. To be worthy of Jesus, to be worthy of the kingdom we must posses the supernatural love that is willing to suffer and sacrifice not simply for loved ones but for others, strangers, people we might tend to judge. <br /><br />How do we get there? The initial movement is always God's. God calls us, God offers the grace to us, but we have to respond. We must allow our merely human love to be transformed, and that transformed love must bear fruit in our everyday words and actions. Or else, we are not worthy of Jesus or his kingdom. <br /><br />Thankfully, when we fall into a truly unworthy state we have the sacrament of penance/reconciliation to bring us back, to heal our wounded relationship with God. <br /><br />In the opening prayer for today's mass, we asked:<br /><br />that we may not be wrapped in the darkness of error<br />but always be seen to stand in the bright light of truth.<br /><br />May we have courage to stand in the bright light of truth about our own lives, and so by God's grace be made worthy to be called disciples of the one Lord Jesus Christ. <br /><br />Fr. Wayne Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13785891141335785078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9060416002422904743.post-20793090153478894372017-07-01T09:20:00.001-04:002017-07-01T09:22:06.794-04:00The strange favor In today's first reading we get what has to be the strangest request for a favor. Not only is it strange but I don't know that I have ever heard it repeated. <br /><br />Abraham sees three strangers walking down the road. And, as chapter 18 of Genesis reports it, he runs out and asks them to do him a favor. <br /><br /><b>Sir, if I may ask you this favor, please do not go on past your servant. Let some water be brought, that you may bathe your feet, and then rest yourselves under the tree. Now that you have come this close to your servant, let me bring you a little food, that you may refresh yourselves; and afterward you may go on your way.</b><br /><br />So they are doing him a favor by bathing with his water, resting in his home, and eating his food? <br /><br />And the answer is Yes! He is not doing them a favor by offering hospitality. They are doing him the favor by accepting it. To us this all seems backwards. It is another example of how God's ways are not our ways. <br /><br />Of all the virtues in the Bible hospitality is the one that seems to get the most lost. And yet, the concept that is central to the Old Testament is really the foundation for evangelization in the New Testament. It is not enough to open the doors to those who come looking. Like Abraham, we must go out in the street and beg them to come visit. The passage tells us that Abraham "ran from the entrance of the tent to greet them; and bowing to the ground..." Imagine any one us, bowing to the ground and begging." We're Americans. Some of us don't even want to kneel before God in church. And we certainly do not beg anyone for anything. <br /><br />And yet, if we are good Jews or Christians, the scriptures tell us that we must. The scriptures are clear that one of the measures by which we are ultimately judged is how we treat the stranger, the foreigner, the person.from whom we can expect no recompense. And all the excuses in the world cannot save us when we stand before God. We are the most blessed county in the world, and therefore God can rightly demand the most from us. When we are personally inhospitable, we call down judgement on us. When we support inhospitable policy, we call down judgement upon us. And when we stand before God which of us will have the nerve to hide behind the non-biblical adage, "Charity begins at home" - words never uttered by a person who is actually charitable. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Fr. Wayne Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13785891141335785078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9060416002422904743.post-54096294138480385592017-06-26T06:48:00.001-04:002017-06-26T06:48:46.420-04:00Unconditional Surrender If we ask where the story begins, we could go back to creation as the book of Genesis does, or we could go back to before time and space as John's gospel does. But today's first reading is the other important beginning, the beginning of the People of Israel, the beginning of the first covenant. <br /><br />As chapter 12 of Genesis recounts the story it begins with a call — a call and a promise. Actually it begins with a command. <br /><br /><b>Go forth</b> halak in Hebrew. The verb means simply to walk. In this case Abram is commanded to walk away from everything he knows. God promises great blessings if he can do this one simple thing. <br /><br /><b>I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. All the communities of the earth shall find blessing in you.</b><br /><br />But it is not simple. God does not tell him where they are going. He is told only that he is to leave him home and go to "the land I will show you." <br /><br />We call Abraham "our father in faith" and today's reading tells us why. Because the response of Abram is not given in words it is given in action. In Hebrew it is the past tense of the same verb God used in the command. God commanded him to walk and the response is <b>Abram walked</b>. He just gets up and walks away — from the known to the unknown. <br /><br />This unnegotiated, unconditional trust in God is the beginning of the covenant that God will make with the people of Israel. When God makes the new and eternal covenant it will be Mary who says the unconditional yes to God's will. <br /><br />Abram and Mary are the two models of perfect faith. <br /><br />In yesterday's gospel we were told to not be afraid. Today and every day we can lead fearless lives if we start each day trying to imitate the faith of Abram and Mary. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Fr. Wayne Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13785891141335785078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9060416002422904743.post-68064306668788217332017-06-13T06:57:00.001-04:002017-06-13T06:57:08.559-04:00Sanctity and YouthIn our English documents we tend to call today's saint St. Anthony of Padua. Ask the Portuguese and they will tell you he is St. Anthony of Lisbon for the place where he was born. <br /><br />Regardless of moniker, what remains to me most striking about this saint is how powerfully God's grace worked in him at such a young age. We tend to think of saints as wise and old, as if those two things go together. St. Anthony was only 36 when he died. And yet, he was such a gifted preacher than he made it all the way to the court of the Pope and after his death was named a Doctor of the Church, a title reserved for the greatest teachers of the faith. <br /><br />What he accomplished in his short life was clearly not his work, but the work of God in and though him. For any of us who preach or teach the faith today is a day not only to look to the example of St. Anthony but also we should not be afraid to ask for his help. Now, as much as ever, we need the ability to translate the message of the gospel into words that can be understood by the world in which we live, especially a language that can be heard by our youth and young adults. <br /><br />St. Anthony, pray for us. <br /><br /><br /><br />Fr. Wayne Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13785891141335785078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9060416002422904743.post-60304732533231923442017-06-12T07:09:00.001-04:002017-06-12T07:09:40.029-04:00Compassion and EncouragementToday we begin a two week reading of the Second Letter of St. Paul to the Church in Corinth. He opens his letter describing God not only of the Father of Jesus but as<br /><div><br /></div><div><b>the Father of compassion and God of encouragement.</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The first of the words is similar to the word we use when we sing Kyrie, Eleison (Lord, have mercy). Many linguists will point out that the word St. Paul uses hear is less removed; it represents a deeply felt kind of compassion/mercy.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>The second word , encouragement (<b>paraklesis</b>), is linked to the word for the Holy Spirit (the Paraclete). At the heart of both is the image of someone who is constantly by your side to console and advise every step of the way. This implies that we should be ready to listen.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>But St. Paul then tells what we must do with the encouragement/advise we receive from God. It is given not just to make us feel better, but</div><div><br /></div><div><div><b>so that we may be able to encourage those who are in any affliction with the encouragement with which we ourselves are encouraged by God.</b></div></div><div><br /></div><div>We receive from God so that we might pass on to others what we receive. We pray, we listen, we pass on to others who are suffering.&nbsp;</div>Fr. Wayne Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13785891141335785078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9060416002422904743.post-3243927375768521902017-06-11T09:32:00.001-04:002017-06-11T09:32:53.125-04:00Trinity is not in the BibleIs the word in the Bible? No, but like many other theological truths,the theology of the Holy Trinity permeates the New Testament. It has been a part of the Church's theology from the beginning. While there are a few groups who baptize in the name of Jesus only, most Christians practice trinitarian baptism as commanded by Jesus at the end of Matthew's gospel. <br /><br />We can start with St. John,<br /><br /><b>God is Love. </b><br /><br />Love is by definition relational. It requires more than one (unless you are a narcissist). There must be at least a Father and Son. <br /><br />The Bible does not say that God began to love, after he created the world. The Scriptures say God is love. It is his essence. From before the creation of anything he was love itself. <br /><br />St. Athanasius explain it using St. Paul,<br /><br />...<i>one God who is above all things and through all things and in all things. God is above all things as Father, for he is principle and source; he is through all things through the Word; and he is in all things in the Holy Spirit.</i><br /><br />We also see it directly spelled out by St. Paul when he greets the people of Corinth,<br /><br /><b>The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. </b><br /><br />Here he uses God as synonymous with the Father. <br /><br />As Christians we believe that all Divine action is carried out by the Father, through the Son, and in the Holy Spirit; from the creation of the universe to and beyond the end of time. <br /><br />What does any of this mean for us now?<br /><br />It goes far beyond sentiment, "God loves me." As the current Pope and his two predecessors have tried to remind us, because God is love, Mercy is also part of the very essence of God. St. John Paul added Divine Mercy Sunday to our calendar to call our attention to this attribute of God. <br /><br />Our great problem is that we reduce Divine Mercy to human mercy. We see it as the opposite of Justice. Part of the great mystery of God is that justice and mercy in God are not separate but are one realty, two sides of the same coin, if you will. <br /><br />So the next time one of us get the urge to say,"I demand justice," we must simultaneously ask, "Am I ready to give mercy." If we live in the Spirit and not in the flesh, we will not try to have one without the other. <br /><br /><br />Fr. Wayne Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13785891141335785078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9060416002422904743.post-26010577509366691732017-06-05T07:33:00.001-04:002017-06-05T07:33:17.886-04:00LXX Old TestamentWhen we think of the Roman Empire, we think Latin. In fact, at the time of Jesus, Greek, not Latin, was the language of the Empire. Just as today we read our Bible in English, Jews of that time would have more often than not used the Greek translation called the Septuagent. <br /><br />The name Septuagent comes from the Roman numeral LXX (70). It is the number of Jewish scholars who translated the Torah into Greek to make it accessible to the people. People in the time of Jesus did not speak Biblical Hebrew. Even Jesus spoke Aramaic. <br /><br />St. Paul and the others who wrote the New Testament depended on the Septuagent when quoting the Old Testament. While it is true that later in history Judaism would reject the Septuagent, Catholic and Orthodox Bibles hold on to it because it was the Old Testament of the Early Church. <br /><br />When we read the Septuagent we are reading not some later, rarified Hebrew Old Testament, but the Old Testament as it would have been read by the first Christian communities. Your Catholic Bible contains all of the books that would have been in the Septuagent. Other bibles have taken out some of the books. I am often perplexed by some Christian theologians who will quote St. Augustine and reject the Bible that he would have read. <br /><br />Today we begin reading the book of Tobit. If you had asked St. Paul was it really part of the Bible, he would have said of course. It would not be until the 16th century that some Christians would reject it. It is not the case as I heard growing up that "Catholics added to the Bible." We simply remain faithful to the Old Testament that would have belonged to the earliest Christians. <br /><br />The Book of Tobit is the story of a man who remains faithful to God's law even in exile. He is willing to risk everything to provide his fellows Jews with a proper burial. This week we will read not only how he suffered but how the angel Rafael came in disguise to assist him because of his faithfulness in things large and small. <br /><br />Fr. Wayne Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13785891141335785078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9060416002422904743.post-45916088813176058042017-05-30T09:45:00.001-04:002017-05-30T09:45:45.232-04:00Paul or PilateWe all remember, and not in good way, Pontius Pilate washing his hands of responsibility for the death of Jesus. It was his job to render the decision and no gesture of hand washing could change that truth. <br /><br />On the other hand we have St. Paul, who shows us that there are times when it is appropriate to not take responsibility. In today's first reading St. Paul says to the people, <br /><br /><b>And so I solemnly declare to you this day that I am not responsible for the blood of any of you, for I did not shrink from proclaiming to you the entire plan of God.</b><br /><br />St. Paul can rightly say he is not responsible because he has done what he can do. He has proclaimed the entire truth to them. What they do in response to that truth is personal responsibility of each individual. <br /><br />All too often, particularly when dealing with family, we feel responsibility to help them, and by help them we mean fix them. We erroneously believe that being a good Christian means doing everything possible for our loved ones. <br /><br />In fact, St. Paul reminds us today that we can advise others but ultimately each person has to be responsible for their own actions, for how they do or do not follow the way of the gospel. This also means that each person must accept the consequences of their choices. <br /><br />We often want to keep others from all suffering. St. Paul proclaims the opposite. He knows that the very act of embracing the gospel is going to lead to suffering and, for some, death. Suffering is part of human life, and in a special way, the Christian life. <br /><br />It is not always easy to discern when we are being Paul and when we are being Pontius Pilate. Prayer and often spiritual direction can assist us in the process, but ultimately we have to listen to the voice of our well-formed conscience. <br />Fr. Wayne Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13785891141335785078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9060416002422904743.post-72161411614117126662017-05-29T07:25:00.001-04:002017-05-29T09:34:42.913-04:00The in between What must those days have been like?— the days between the Ascension and Pentecost. It is hard to imagine the feeling of lose the Apostles and other disciples must have felt. We know that many drifted away. Disillusioned, they went back to their old life. <br /><br />And yet, there were the few who had real faith; not faith as ascent to a list of beliefs, but faith in the sense of absolute trust in the words that Jesus spoke to them. <br /><br />In today's gospel we hear the most outrageous claim in the gospel. <br /><br /><b>I have conquered the world</b> <br /><br />Jesus did not claim that he will conquer [future tense] it when he came back. Jesus claimed that he had [past tense] conquered it. <br /><br />Some two thousand years later it is hard to see the signs of His having conquered the world. If we listen to the news and even some Christian preachers, you would think that this world is still firmly in the hands of Satan. <br /><br />But here is where we must have faith. Faith reaches beyond the narrow spectrum of what the human eye can see and what the human ear can hear. Faith enables us to use our hearts to reach beyond sight and sound, and to trust that Jesus has, on the most real level of reality, already conquered the world. <br /><br />If we look for them, we can in fact get glimpses of the victory. But we have to look for them. <br /><br />With the Ascension Jesus did not simply go back to where He came from and leave them with nothing while they waited for the Spirit. He left them in a world that had been transformed,a world that He had already conquered. <br /><br />As we start this week, let us believe the words of Jesus. Believe Him when he says, "I have conquered the world." And with the eyes of our hearts and souls we will see all around us the signs of the Victory that those without faith cannot see. <br /><br /><br />Fr. Wayne Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13785891141335785078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9060416002422904743.post-74152957526541958212017-05-22T09:32:00.001-04:002017-05-22T09:32:17.851-04:00Preparing for Pentecost June 4th the Church will celebrate the Feast of Pentecost. But the way our lectionary is structured we actually start two weeks out with readings that help us prepare for Pentecost. <br /><br />In John's Gospel the Holy Spirit is called by another title. He is the <i>parakletos</i>. The most exact Latin translation would be Advocate, literally the one who is called to stand at your side. Today Jesus tells us:<br /><br /><b>When the Advocate comes whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will testify to me. </b><br /><br />In our creed we say that He "proceeds from the Father and the Son." And in fact, Jesus says the same thing slightly differently. Jesus says that He will send the Spirit, and the Spirit is from the Father as well. <b>The Spirit is from both Father and the Son. </b><br /><br /><b>It is the Spirit of Truth.</b> It would be impossible to understate the importance of our belief that what the Spirit speaks is not a truth, but the Truth. <br /><br /><b>The Spirit testifies</b>, the Greek word from which we get martyr. Its original meaning was to testify, to give witness. <br /><br />The Holy Spirit is the wise counselor, but is also the witness. <br /><br />But where do we fit into this picture?<br /><br />Whether we use the Greek "Paraclete" or the Latin "Advocate," either implies there must be a call made, a call for help. Before there is a call for help, there must be a recognition of a need for help. And there's the rub. <br /><br />The Son ascended to the Father, and the Holy Spirit (equally God) has been sent into this world to be the Advocate for every man, woman, and child; to give us wise counsel, to plead our cause, to lead us step by step on the path of salvation. <br /><br />And yet, too many days we think and act as if we can do it on our own. We only want to call for help when we are in "real trouble." Otherwise, we want to run our own lives. We think that is freedom. <br /><br />There may be no dumber person on earth than the one who thinks he is smarter than his lawyer. <br /><br />You want to be smart? You want to be free? It's very simple. Walk through every day remembering that your Advocate is with you and don't say or do anything without clearing it first through Him. <br />Fr. Wayne Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13785891141335785078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9060416002422904743.post-58428513104487623642017-05-20T08:27:00.002-04:002017-05-21T14:26:12.818-04:00Humble ServiceYesterday we welcomed three new deacons into the clergy of the Diocese of Richmond. For priests, it is a reminder that a part of our Catholic theology of priesthood is the belief that when we are ordained priests we remain deacons. Even when one is ordained a bishop, one remains a priest and a deacons. Each successive ordination builds on the previous one. It does not replace it. <br /><br />More broadly the ordination of a deacon is a reminder to every Christian that <i>diakonia</i> is the very foundation of every ministry in the Church. In the rite of ordination the meaning of <i>diakonia</i> is captured in two words, humble service. <br /><br />The original seven deacons in the Acts 6 were ordained to care for the widows (and other needy people) so that the Apostles could focus on prayer and preaching. They were waiters and hence the name deacon. <br /><br />In those moments when we are most honest with ourselves we can see that every day we wrestle with both words, humble and service. God is the Master and we are the servants. <br /><br />At various points in the mass we kneel before God, we bow before God, we genuflect in God's presence. We physically lower ourselves. It can feel strange, awkward or uncomfortable because it is the opposite of what our ego and our culture calls us to do. <br /><br />As we start a new week let us look for those small opportunities that we have each day to lower ourselves, to raise others up, to put them ahead of us, to let them go first — the chance to peace humble service. <br /><br /><br />Fr. Wayne Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13785891141335785078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9060416002422904743.post-22518519431621344812017-05-15T08:14:00.001-04:002017-05-15T08:14:37.064-04:00Measuring LoveAll Christians can recite the two great commandments: love God and love your neighbor as yourself. But my guess is most of us don't spend a lot of time thinking about the very real possibility that we don't love God. <br /><br />If I call myself Christian, if I go to church, then I guess I love God. At least I love God enough. <br /><br />In a single verse at the beginning of today's gospel Jesus gives us a very simple way that each of us can find a definite answer to the question: do I love God. <br /><br /><b>Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me.</b><br /><br />Notice he says "my commandments." He does not say "the 10 commandments given to Moses interpreted in the narrowest possible way." Jesus's commandments includes everything that he commanded us to do or not to do, not simply our narrow reading of the 10. <br /><br />One of the great things about the Catechism of the Catholic Church is that you can go to <a target="_blank" href="http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P78.HTM">Part Three/ Section 2</a> and you will see the combination of the 10 commandments and those things which Jesus taught which expanded and deepened our understanding of each of those commandments.<br /><br />To the extent that I know and strive to keep these commandments, I can rightly say that I love Jesus, I love God. To the extent that I choose to remain ignorant, or chose to ignore certain commandments, I am forced to admit that I don't really love God. I chose love of self over love of God. I do my will and not His. <br /><br />Perhaps it would be good over a period of day to take the commandments one by one in the Catechism. Read through each one. Meditate on each one. Ask the hard question. Am I really ready to embrace all that this commandment entails?<br /><br />Only when we do our best each day to keep all of the commandments can we truly say that we love God. <br />Fr. Wayne Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13785891141335785078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9060416002422904743.post-83674574590368714612017-05-13T08:40:00.001-04:002017-05-13T08:40:18.156-04:00Fatima 100 years laterToday the town of Fatima Portugal hosted Pope Francis for the canonization of two children, and the 100th anniversary of the beginning apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary. <br /><br />Having grown up Baptist, Marian devotion was probably the aspect of the Catholic faith I wrestled with the most. I understood the difference between devotion and worship. I understood that devotion to Mary, is supposed to deepen our relationship with Jesus. I had read the theory, but deep down inside I just didn't get it. <br /><br />As far back as I can remember Jesus and I were always close. I could always talk with him. What else did I need? <br /><br />It wasn't until the death of my own mother that I finally understood. It was when that relationship was ripped away that I realized its uniqueness. No, she had not been the one to give birth to me, but she was still my mother in every other sense of the word. And there is no substitute. <br /><br />God made us male and female. Now more that ever we understand that this is more than an anatomical difference. And so, paternity and maternity are two distinct but complimentary realities. We need both in our lives. <br /><br />It was shortly after my mother's death, that a friend in Rome pointed out to me that I had been ordained on the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima. I would mull that over for a couple a years before I finally made the pilgrimage. <br /><br />There are some who will try and argue that Jesus teaching us to call God "Father" is mere cultural convention. The same people will argue that when God became incarnate it was as a man because he needed to fit in. It seems to me that there is more going than we can fully comprehend. When we call God "Father" there is a true paternity there. <br /><br />Jesus understood God as his father and Mary as his mother. If all Christians can agree that we are to imitators of Christ, then how can we say that we are not supposed to imitate this. <br /><br />At Fatima, I took a leap of faith. I stopped trying to find the fully rational explanation and embraced it. I had long ago embraced God as my father, and Jesus as my brother, there I embraced Mary as my mother.<br /><br />We need the whole family. That I simple truth. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Fr. Wayne Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13785891141335785078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9060416002422904743.post-53471611369696355352017-05-12T07:44:00.001-04:002017-05-12T07:44:56.097-04:00Rediscovering TruthIn today's gospel we hear one of the simplest and yet most profound statements in the Gospel, when Jesus describes himself with three words: <b>way, truth, and life</b>. That Jesus is the way to eternal life is the bold claim at the heart of the Christian message. But it is the middle word that we need to focus on, truth. <br /><br />We live in a culture in which for the first time, the question of Pontius Pilate<br /><br /><b>What is truth? (Jn 18:38)</b><br /><br />has become the central question of our time. <br /><br />Gradually, over the last few decades at least, we have been sliding away from a belief in objective truth. More and more people conflate opinion and truth. Your opinion is "your truth." People are encouraged to find their own personal truth. This error is often dressed up as something profound. It is simply wrong and dangerous. <br /><br />The corollary danger is that if there is no such thing as truth, then there is no such thing as a lie. That person isn't lying, they are only speaking their truth. And at that point lies become like wire grass in the lawn, enmeshed. <br /><br />Some act horrified as day after day statements coming from the White House are shown to be factually incorrect. And yet we have no one to blame but ourselves. Some want to blame the culture but we are the culture. We, collectively, create the culture. We have created this culture of personal subjective truth, alternative facts. <br /><br />Let us pray that the current crisis will force left and right to come together around some fundamentals. <br /><br />There is such a thing as objective truth. <br /><br />It is knowable. <br /><br />And we should all want to hear it, even when it runs contrary to what we want to believe. <br /><br />The truth is the truth. A lie is a lie. <br /><br />Without searching for the Truth we will never find the Way that leads to the Life. <br />Fr. Wayne Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13785891141335785078noreply@blogger.com